Music and the Mind by Anthony Storr

Why does music have such a powerful effect on our minds and bodies? It is the most mysterious and most intangible of all forms of art. Yet, Anthony Storr believes, music today is a deeply significant experience for a greater number of people than ever before. In this challenging book, he explores why this should be so. Music is a succession of tones through time. How can a sequence of sounds both express emotion and evoke it in the listener? Drawing on a wide variety of opinions, Storr argues that the patterns of music make sense of our inner experience, giving both structure and coherence to our feelings and emotions. Dr. Storr was a practicing psychiatrist for nearly forty years and is a distinguished thinker about the sources of creativity. He is deeply concerned with the psychology of the creative process and with the healing power of the arts. Here he explains how, in a culture which requires us in our daily working lives to separate rational thought from feelings, music reunites the mind and body, restoring our sense of personal wholeness. It is because music possesses this capacity that many people, including the author, find it so life-enhancing that it justifies existence. Dr. Storr's investigation of music is also an exploration of the human psyche. That is why this book, like all his work, deepens our understanding of ourselves and the lives we lead.

Charles Anthony Storr, May 18, 1920 - March 17, 2001 Charles Anthony Storr was born on May 18, 1920 in London to a Reverend of Westminster Abbey and his wife. The two were first cousins, which may have lead to his poor health and depression. At the age of eight, he attended public school at Winchester and was very unhappy. He graduated from Winchester College and proceeded to Christ's Church in Cambridge where he met C. P. Snow who encouraged him to be moral and compassionate. Storr continued his medical studies at Westminster Hospital from 1941 to 1944, and then became a house physician at various hospitals. He is best known for his books on Freud and Jung. After completing his education, Storr practiced psychotherapy privately, but combined his private practice with hospitals as a consultant. In 1974, he retired from private practice to teach post graduate doctors at Oxford where he received dining rights at Wadham College and became a fellow at Green College. After his first attempt at writing proved fruitful, Storr continued his career as a writer, producing 11 books in the next 26 years. Storr's books were very popular in the U. S. and following his literary fame, he became a frequent book reviewer and commentator on British television. He wrote on different themes, but his favorites were gurus, as evidenced in his book, "Feet of Clay, solitude as a helpful tool in recovery, "Solitude: A Return to Self", and the theories of Freud and Jung. Storr died on March 17 in Oxford after having a heart attack during a speech at Wadham College. He was 80 years old.

Unrated Critic Reviews for Music and the Mind

Kirkus Reviews

After considering theories connecting music to natural phenomena like bird-song or linguistic features, Storr concludes that, although the origins of music will never be established conclusively, ``it seems probable that music developed from the prosodic exchanges between mother and infant which ...

Publishers Weekly

Rejecting the Freudian notion that music is a form of infantile escapism, British psychologist Storr ( Solitude ) argues that music originates from the human brain, promotes order within the mind, exalts life and gives it meaning.

The Independent

Levi-Strauss put it well: 'Since music is the only language with the contradictory attributes of being at once intelligible and untranslatable, the musical creator is a being comparable to the gods, and music itself the supreme mystery of the science of man.'
In Music and the Mind, Anthony Stor...